Got a package today from Zack Taylor, currently living in Wales, containing a stack of 20 singles from the UK. Free records from another country are the best records of all.
C&C Music Factory: Gonna Make You Sweat/Gonna Make You Sweat (Master Mix)
Pet Shop Boys: Always on My Mind/Do I Have To?
Righteous Brothers: Unchained Melody/You're My Soul and Inspiration
UB40: I Got You Babe/Theme From Labour of Love
Yazoo: Only You/Situation
Blondie: War Child/Little Ceasar
Bay City Rollers: Rock 'n Roller/I Only Wanna Be With You
Vangelis: Chariots of Fire/Eric's Theme
Pretenders: 2000 Miles/Fast or Slow the Law's the Law
Stevie Wonder: Do I Do/Rocket Love
Bruce Springsteen: My Hometown/Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Jermaine Stewart: We Don't Have To/Brilliance
Enigma: Sadness Part 1/Sadness Part 1 (Meditation Mix)
MC Hammer: Pray/Pray (Jam the Hammer Mix)
David Bowie: Boys Keep Swinging/Fantastic Voyage
Robert Palmer: Simply Irresistible/Nova
Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder: Ebony and Ivory/Rainclouds
Billy Joel: Tell Her About It/Easy Money
Billy Joel: The Night is Still Young/Summer, Highland Falls
Olivia Newton-John & Gene Kelly: Magic/Whenever You're Away From Me
We found this in the 50 cent section at Treehouse and thought it was probably some failed new wave band with crazy song titles like "I Hate the Beach Boys" and "Cowboy Lips." But upon closer inspection of the album we come across this:
A warning label?! An a cappella new wave group!?! Oh man, what have we gotten ourselves into?
And there is a cover of Helter Skelter that is well... you can hear it for yourself.
So the moral of the story is, some warning labels are there for a reason... do not ignore them!
I like compilations. For a long time, I viewed them as garbage made for people who didn't actually care about an artist enough to buy an entire album. The truth is, a lot of artists, most artists, are singles artists capable of only making one out of every ten songs listenable. I still don't like compilations that feature only one artist in most cases, but various artist compilations are pretty cool.
First of all, they are almost always dirt cheap. Secondly, they're a great way to find out about music you might like. If there's a compilation that has a few songs you really like, chances are that the other songs you don't know are similar in some way.
We've started picking up a few bargain bin compilations lately, but The Best of Buddah is one of the best we've come across. We knew maybe half of the songs on here, but there isn't a bad one in the bunch. The 1976 release compiles the biggest hits from Buddah Records, still the main source of my spelling issues with the word "Buddha."
There are some big hits that are still radio staples on here, like "Midnight Train to Georgia," "Summer in the City," "Ooh Child," "It's Your Thing," "Green Tambourine," "One Toke Over the Line," "Brother Louis," and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy." Here are a few cool songs we didn't know from this set.
Curtis Mayfield: Freddie's Dead
New Birth: Dream Merchant (not sure what's going on in this video)
Jaggerz: The Rapper
Flaming Ember: Westbound #9
100 Proof Aged in Soul: Sombody's Been Sleepin'
If only oldies radio went beyond their limited playlists to some of the other thousands of songs released in the 30-40 year period they represent.
